I see article after article declaring that Mastodon is too nerdy, has failed, and that Bluesky is the only hope for people who have left Twitter.
Meanwhile, not only do I have more followers on this platform than I've ever had on anything else (I'm about to hit 2K), I also see far more engagement and discussion from each of those followers than I ver did on more traditional social media platforms. Meaning that Mastodon is more "social" and less "media."
Ultimately, I think people need to readjust their mindsets when it comes to modern social platforms. Facebook spent billions of dollars and more than a decade training us all to reject a feed full of our friends and instead scroll through endless feeds of rage bait, bots, influencers, and ads. It'll take some time for people to heal and return to the place that they started in the mid 2000s with platforms like MySpace. Or, if they're too young to have used them, to discover what social media really is.
@zak I think, like you touch, a "problem" for Mastodon is that it is not commercial in its core; it is not driven by attracting companies to spend company money on ads or having a company page. I cannot really pinpoint my thoughts but something in this positive side that Mastodon is open and free also have the drawback that it gets less attention in business marketing and therefore less attention in other ways too. But despite that, indeed very many have found Mastodon!
@zak I agree with what you write Zak.
@hehemrin I actually don't think that engagement from businesses would be a bad thing here. I think the bad part of traditional business engagement comes in the monetization of that engagement. Everything is measured in dollars spent and interactions made, rather than actual responses. It typically lacks a human element, which is counter to true "social" networking.
There are no ads here, and so I don't see that happening any time soon. If a company wants that sort of engagement here, they actually have to post good content. Which is good for everybody.